Running
by Lucillia
Summary: There were several points along Bester's life where he could have run or stayed with the Corps. Here, he chose to run, for all the good it did him. Likely AU.
1. Running From a Lie

Alfred Bester, a small, skinny twelve year old boy with reddish brown hair and brown eyes, who was dressed in clothing that wasn't suited for the current weather as it was usually worn indoors, and hadn't taken the time to grab a coat, shivered in the cold. _No_, he thought, _Not Alfred Bester, Stephen Dexter. My name is Stephen. They lied to me. They all lied._

Earlier that day, he had been stripped naked and led to a place where it had been revealed that the Grins that he had feared for his entire short life were in fact the very adults who had raised him, people he had loved and admired. It was in the moment that he had been allowed into the unguarded minds of those same adults that he tore away an important secret. He had learned the truth of who he was. One of the adults who had supervised him over the years - an adult who had once been a child on the run - had seen him and recognized him for who he was. He was the son of two people who had taken him from a bad situation, and given him hope before the Corps caught him again.

The gloves that he had been given had been thrown in the trash the moment he sensed that he wasn't being watched. As soon as the gloves had been discarded, he had run for all he was worth. He was small, but he was also faster than anyone in his age group, and most of the people in the age groups above him. He had run for miles not planning, not thinking about what would happen next, just running from the people who had stolen him and murdered his parents, the beautiful red haired woman, and the handsome dark haired man that he would sometimes see in the stars.

Stephen shivered as he curled up in a ball in an isolated field. The teeptown near Geneva had been placed in an area that was undeveloped for several miles in every direction. Ergo, there was no shelter to be found. The sun had set a while ago, taking what little warmth it brought with it.

His head suddenly shot up. He could feel them. They were hunting for him. They had found him. He got up and ran. He ran until he could run no more.

Brett and Mila covertly watched as the PsiCops dragged Alfred into a building that was off limits. Alfred had always been something of an outsider, but this... Alfred had always been loyal to the Corps. _Perhaps, a little too loyal... _Brett thought and wondered why that thought sent a chill running down his spine.

**Edited 7-1-11**


	2. Running in Paris

Alfred Bester - a fifteen year old boy who was only a couple inches taller than he had been when he was twelve, who was dressed in standard Psi-Corps attire - felt Brett and Julia kissing in the bushes. He had had the biggest crush on Julia, and had gone along on the camping trip with the others from his former Cadre in hopes of finally connecting with her. That had gone down like a lead balloon. He had always been an outsider when it came to people his age, and probably always would be. He should never have gone on this hike with his former Cadre mates. He had never been one of them, even though he'd grown up alongside them since he was in diapers. There was just something about him that subtly separated him from the others, and he could never figure out why. It wasn't telepathic ability, as he wasn't the only P12 in the group.

Following Lara Brazg to Paris had been an impulsive and highly stupid move on his part. He had gone to the train station earlier than the others with the vague idea of going home and getting his book report finished early when he had spotted the Rogue Telepath. He had followed her because he had wanted to be the hero, to show everyone exactly how much better than them he was. Instead he found himself lost in Paris as the trail had gone cold, and his quarry had been lost.

As he wandered around Paris following Lara Brazg, slowly lowering the stiff blocks he had built when he arrived as he got used to the crowds, he found something else. The environment he was in was wilder and freer than Teeptown in a way he couldn't quite describe. He found that he liked it, and entertained the thought of staying, hidden amongs the millions of minds this place held. Perhaps he could find the place he belonged here, as he obviously hadn't belonged there.

He had been nursing his fourth cup of coffee and pondering the thought of staying hidden from the Corps instead of going home like he should, when Brazg - now with short black hair, having apparently gotten a quick cut and dye job - walked up to the table he was at and sat down across from him. He quickly got his credit chit out of his pocket and gestured to the waiter - who had been wondering when the boy would realize he had overstayed his welcome - that he was ready to leave. He would be leaving soon anyway, either in the company of Brazig or in a body bag, considering the fact that the woman was holding an antique revolver that she'd managed to get past the weapon scanner under the table.

"I wouldn't pay with that if I were you." Brazg said taking a chit from her pocket and handing it to the waiter.

With that, she led him away, tossing his credit chit in a nearby garbage receptacle.

&!&!&!&

Stephen Dexter had been with his new family for almost a month when the PsiCops had broken into the safehouse. Lara and her boyfriend had managed to break through a block on his memories the first week in, and he had once again learned his true name, and the truth of his heritage. He had been born free, and he would die free, and help free all he could along the way. PsiCorps was wrong on so many levels, and got worse every year, now that there wasn't a telepath to head it.

Lara had been killed defending the front door while the others tried to escape, and her boyfriend Portis Nielsson had died getting him out the back door and covering his exit.

_Run! _had been the last thing he'd sent before he fell.

Stephen had run like the wind, but he still wasn't fast enough. One of the Cops in the raid had been using a slugthrower, and he'd been hit with a lucky shot. With every step he took, he felt like he was drowning in Jello. Finally, he too fell.

**Edited 7-1-11**


	3. Runaway Love

Alfred Bester, a nearly twenty year old man with darkening reddish brown hair and brown eyes who had finally realized he'd stopped growing when he stayed stubbornly at five foot six for more than a year, stared lovingly at the woman who was to be his wife. Elizabeth Montoya had stayed with him for the past year, ever since their first successful "hunt", never once considering leaving him for a taller, nicer, or more attractive man.

When he asked her to marry him, she had said yes, and he believed himself to be the luckiest man in the history of humanity. Elizabeth, was smart, beautiful, everything a man could want in a woman, and strangely enough she wanted him, despite the fact that he was short, scrawny, and nowhere near as handsome as say, Brett, for instance.

It was during one of those precious few moments they were able to be together that Elizabeth told him of her crazy plan to leave the Corps and begged him to go with her. It had to be now or never, because the Corps would never let them go once they passed the PsiCop training exams that they would be taking soon. As soon as they passed the upcoming exams and became PsiCops, sleepers wouldn't be an option, even if they had decided they wanted to take them.

He sat in the tree he had climbed so often throughout his childhood for several hours, considering his options. His feet swung as they dangled from the branch he had once leapt to reach when he was six, and had once again had to be rescued by Brett, the all-round hero and leader of their cadre. Eventually, he came to a decision.

The corps had been his life, but all who he would stay for were dead and gone. His mentor Sandoval Bey had committed suicide years ago, taking a great deal of the light in his life away with him. After Sandoval's death, he had drifted away from the few friends he'd made. Elizabeth was pretty much all he had, and if she was leaving, he would go with her.

With his mind made up, he leaped from the tree and headed to the single's dorms to pack.

He met Elizabeth on the hillside in their favorite park. They kissed with a burning passion, and he knew that he had never loved her more than he had in that moment. They turned and ran towards the future they were going to make together away from the Corps and its stifling restrictions. They would be the ones raising any children they had, not a group of strangers posing as kindly mentors one minute and fearsome Grins the next.

They had been gone for no more than three days when the Corps caught up with them before they could go offworld. As they were being dragged apart, he realized that he'd been implanted with a tracker at some point. The only reason that the Corps had allowed them to get as far as they did had apparently been in the hopes of finding and rolling up any group of rogues that they might have taken shelter with. Fortunately for any unfortunates that would have been captured with them, he and Elizabeth had made it as far as they had solely on their own skill.

**Edited 7-1-11**


	4. Running to Mars

Alfred Bester, a short 34 year old man with brown hair with hints of red in it and premature frown lines that spoke of a difficult and bitter life who was dressed in the standard black uniform of a Psi-Cop, stood at the door to the hut near the beach in New Zealand wondering why the Blip he'd been pursuing - a man named Johnathan Stone - had wanted him to go inside. Finally deciding that it might be a trap that he could walk away from, and not wanting to look like a coward, he opened the door and stepped inside.

"Hello Stee." Said a strangely familiar man with pale gray hair and the brightest blue eyes Bester had ever seen. "I was wondering when you'd find me."

He stared at the man wondering why he and the name Stee were familiar. The truth hit him hard. The PPG he had been holding fell from nerveless fingers as he realized once again that the life he had been living was a lie he had repeatedly tried to run away from.

"Welcome home." Stephen Walters said as he embraced the godson that had been lost to him for a very long time.

&!&!&!&

Stee Dexter had followed his godfather to the safehouse they were setting up on Mars. The local government was rather indifferent to the existence of rogue telepaths, and the local PsiCops usually couldn't be bothered to leave the comfort of the main dome. It was for those reasons that Mars was probably the most ideal place in the solar system to set up a haven for those who would escape the repression of the Corps.

It was a couple months in when they realized that they had made a critical mistake. The locals could quite easily ignore a bunch of nothing rogues wandering about, but they couldn't ignore the leader of the resistance and his sucessor if they wanted their other activities to go unnoticed. Forced to deal with the rogue problem that had built up in their back yard before someone from Earth arrived and started messing with the Status Quo, the local PsiCops dealt with it hard and fast, not bothering with the usual rules and procedure that usually hampered Earthbound PsiCops.

Stee Dexter fought fiercely, taking down several of the people who were conducting the raid in hopes that at least some of his fellow rogues would be able to get away and start new lives elsewhere. In the end though, they all, including himself, were either captured or killed like his godfather had been.

Stee took everything that could be stolen from him and hid it safe, gripped tightly, and away from prying minds, in his closed fist.


	5. Running From the Job

Alfred Bester, a short 69 year old man with darkish brown hair with hints of red in it and a carefully cultured abrasive personality that kept most people away, knew he could never run away from the Corps. He had tried several times, and they always caught him, and dragged him back. It was easier just to stay and get whatever job was set before him done.

Today, he had been sent to the new Babylon 5 to hunt down a failed experiment named Jason Ironheart. The search had been successful, and Ironheart was standing in the corridor in front of him. Before him was a choice, send the shutdown codes and give the Corps a weapon that could cause a great deal of harm and an untold amount of collateral damage, or don't. In the end, it wasn't a choice at all. Turning his PPG on his partner/handler, Kelsey was soon gone. So too was Ironheart a few minutes later. That one however hadn't been his doing, as Ironheart had somehow managed to convert all of his matter into energy.

_Run all you want, I won't even try to catch you. _He sent to Ivanova before he left the station, whether or not she heard him was immaterial. He could not run, but he could help those that the Corps didn't know about do so. He thought it to be the height of stupidity to waste such a talented officer as Ivanova, and that would be exactly what it was if the Corps ever got their hands on the woman who couldn't be much higher than a mid-level P2. As far as the Corps seemed to be concerned, such low-level telepaths were only good for breeding more - and hopefully stronger - telepaths, or being experimented on.

A year later, he let the sleeper agent that was hiding in Talia Winters believe that he believed that Talia's new friends had died by his hand. Only the leader of that particular group of rogues that had hung around in the not-so-originally named Down Below that was the dwelling place for the station's poor and homeless, the strong one, the one who had been pushed past P13 to God only knew what thanks to the Corps' experiments, knew the truth and he wasn't telling.

Still though, despite his "stellar" work, the Corps became suspicious of the amount of control they had over him...

**Edited 7-1-11**


	6. Running into the Night

Stephen Dexter, a white haired 92 year old man who was nearing his end smiled as he looked down at his finished autobiography. The galaxy was going to get one hell of a surprise when it was published a year after his funeral. They would learn exactly how much he actually believed of that tripe he'd spouted at his trial. Bester, who had split off from him and become an entirely different entity during the session that had finally broken him had needed to be locked up for his and everyone else's safety. Bester had taken all of the darkness within him and became something other, something exceedingly dangerous. Hiding himself, and this autobiography from Bester had been an exceedingly difficult task, made even harder by the fact that they both shared the same room and each had a different system for arranging their belongings, which made Bester suspicious when he found that certain items had been moved from where he'd last set them.

Alfred Bester awoke from his light nap and listened to the ceremony that dedicated the statue that replaced the Grabber that was being piped into his cell as he worked on his unfinished memoirs. At the names Matthew and Fiona Dexter, his heart seemed to stop. He shook his head at the odd feeling hoping it would go away. It didn't. The left hand that had remained closed for so long, for most of his life in fact seemed to open of its own volition. The secrets held within it spilled out and into his mind. Overcome, he fell back onto his bed in something almost like a fugue state. The secrets he held even from himself came spilling out of him in every direction, including his mouth.

When it became completely unbearable, and he felt that he couldn't take any more, someone reached out to him and offered to help quiet the noise. That Someone looked almost exactly like him, but kinder, gentler, with lines on his face that spoke of determination, not cruelty. Bester reached out his hand to take the help the man offered. A smile came to Bester/Stee's face as the two became one and they ran to a place where none could follow, a place where no shadows fell.

**Edited 7-1-11**


End file.
